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If it be urged that Motion is but imperfect Act, there would
be no objection to giving priority to Act and subordinating to it
Motion with its imperfection as a species: Act would thus be
predicated of Motion, but with the qualification "imperfect."
Motion is thought of as imperfect, not because it is not an Act,
but because, entirely an Act, it yet entails repetition [lacks
finality]. It repeats, not in order that it may achieve
actuality- it is already actual- but that it may attain a goal
distinct from itself and posterior: it is not the motion itself
that is then consummated but the result at which it aims. Walking
is walking from the outset; when one should traverse a racecourse
but has not yet done so, the deficiency lies not in the walking-
not in the motion- but in the amount of walking accomplished; no
matter what the amount, it is walking and motion already: a
moving man has motion and a cutter cuts before there is any
question of Quantity. And just as we can speak of Act without
implying time, so we can of Motion, except in the sense of motion
over a defined area; Act is timeless, and so is Motion pure and
simple.
Are we told that Motion is necessarily in time, inasmuch as it
involves continuity? But, at this, sight, never ceasing to see,
will also be continuous and in time. Our critic, it is true, may
find support in that principle of proportion which states that
you may make a division of no matter what motion, and find that
neither the motion nor its duration has any beginning but that
the division may be continued indefinitely in the direction of
the motion's origin: this would mean that a motion just begun has
been in progress from an infinity of time, that it is infinite as
regards its beginning.
Such then is the result of separating Act from Motion: Act, we
aver, is timeless; yet we are forced to maintain not only that
time is necessary to quantitative motion, but, unreservedly, that
Motion is quantitative in its very nature; though indeed, if it
were a case of motion occupying a day or some other quantity of
time, the exponents of this view would be the first to admit that
Quantity is present to Motion only by way of accident.
In sum, just as Act is timeless, so there is no reason why Motion
also should not primarily be timeless, time attaching to it only
in so far as it happens to have such and such an extension.
Timeless change is sanctioned in the expression, "as if change
could not take place all at once"; if then change is timeless,
why not Motion also?- Change, be it noted, is here distinguished
from the result of change, the result being unnecessary to
establish the change itself.
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